A Walk to Ironbridge

So, back to Shropshire in July – we walked from Much Wenlock to Ironbridge and back again.

Little S was hugely impressed by just about everything about Shropshire, including the fact that the houses were built from brick. Having grown up in the midlands, that seems perfectly normal to me, but up here in the north-wet I suppose red brick buildings are a rarity.

As you can see, the weather was glorious.

As we approached the edge of the Severn Gorge, we entered woodland. The woods were full of hollows like this one…

…some of one much deeper than this one. This is one of the many places in the UK which claims to have been the seat of the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution, and there were certainly many coal and mineral deposits here. Perhaps these hollows, which seemed like they could be railway cuttings, were once part of the local mining industry.

Looking down to Ironbridge.

I think these huge fungi might be Artist’s Bracket. Apparently, it’s possible to rub and scratch the white surface of the underside of the brackets, revealing a brown layer below and producing a drawing.

Ironbridge and it’s eponymous iron bridge. I think Little S took this photo, he showed a sudden interest in my camera and I had to share it with him that day. He took some odd photos, including some of the back of Andy’s head!

River Severn.

I thought I vaguely remembered a school trip to Ironbridge when I was ‘knee-high to a grasshopper’, (as my grandad used to say), but I remembered the bridge being black. Apparently, it was grey until quite recently, but I can’t find any record of it’s having been black. Having said that, four of the adults in our party had grown up in the midlands and we all thought we could remember it as black, so maybe I’m not making it up?

The bridge was built between 1779 and 1780, opening on New Year’s Day 1781. It seems to have lasted pretty well!

We took a similar, but slightly shorter route back to the campsite. It had been a very pleasant walk, in great company and superb weather.